Tonight
I enjoyed
the solitude
of crossing the street
in a downpour,
hood up,
into the
buzzing neon lights of a
chinese restaurant,
escaping these
pink petals
wilting and dripping.

On the bottom step
A lone pine cone sadly sits–
Grow me a tree.

When i tell you things from
deep within i feel exhumed and
exhausted and as
vulnerable as if your next
word could be a
lifeline
or a noose.

(And sometimes i feel this way for days.)

I have been trying
for twelve years
to learn Tagalog—

even though it was my
first language.

I experienced epiphany
at the age of nine
upon discovering
over a plate of spaghetti
at a friend’s house
that not all American families
eat Rice

with every meal.

it’s just that i
have a short
attention spa

is NOT the space between two points/
distance/is a tearing sensation/
rending hearts and continents apart/
leaving us to say goodbye/like we mean it/
far too frequently

it
is
a
dropping
sensation.
the
falling
feeling

when something old&expensive hits the floor/
when your foot forgets the ground/and is surprised/
by the next step

i am an imposter
imparting knowledge

when i have nothing
not even a beard.

We stood in the grey halls of
the arena my hand in
yours. the muted shouts of
the crowd, vicious and
bloodthirsty, threatened to
return me to the reality of
the cockfight we had just
left because as a boy of
eight, the blood was much
more red than i had
expected. and in the
shadows we passed an
old man, skin the color of
cocoa, holding a bird in his
lap. with his calloused
hands he carefully placed the
bluish grey intestines back
into its slashed abdomen—with the
casual air of the weary—and
then began to stitch. the
bird—probably the product of
generations of selective
breeding—stared silently barely
breathing. gone, now, all the rage
of the moment before the fight.

gone
now
all.

my life leaves
much to be
desired since i
am without an
outer space battle
to fight

thus
i watch sci-fi
on many nights
tour the galaxy
defeat the forces
of evil

so call me
a nerd; i’ll reply
“this thing of darkness,
i acknowledge mine”
from my place in
the pre-sale line

because don’t you know:
escapism makes life
bearable

beneath covers we
kiss and
touch and
speak memories

and upon reentering the
world remember that
time—unlike our hearts—
does not stop on each occasion that
my hand
slides
past
your
hips.

the neighbor’s dog
is shitting on my lawn
again.

i want to write a poem
and then speak it like a spell
causing all those who hear it
to go home and compose their own

like glass
shattering
with each
shard then expanding

only to
break again:
infinitely expanding and infinitely shattering

until our world is a stained glass window
reflecting the sun’s light through
our careful words.